“Katy is a difficult nut to crack,” continued TronAxis in his Tyranea office while Baker Bloch and Hucka Doobie furiously take notes, trying to shorten the night so that another post can be created after the present one. “Oh. Sorry I guess I should have put that another way, ahem. Kate is a difficult *case* to crack–”
“You said she still can’t tell what time it is, what year it is?” uttered Hucka Doobie, attempting to move things along.
“That’s right. One moment she’s little Katy Kidd, stuck in a purple house with an abusive mother, and then the next she’s Kate McCoy, all grown up and back in reality. How long has she been here now?” he inquired partly to himself, partly to the “guardians” Baker and Hucka sitting before him. “5 years I would guess,” he answers while looking up, then looks left. “And the purple house still sits right over there in the opposite corner of the sim. Vacant — the mother’s been dead that long. Still she torments this poor woman-child from the grave.”
Baker’s turn now. He lifts pencil from pad while starting his question. “How about the sphere? She hasn’t strayed down the path of Blue Berry Girl and gone all nudist on us? I’m not (he flips a page, checking notes before he speaks again) sure why — (flips more) she was hired actually. Wasn’t she a former patient?”
“Of Dr. Baumbeer my predecessor, yes,” answers TronAxis, trying to be as transparent as possible within the framework of client-patient confidentiality. “Blue Berry Girl is a very capable therapist, and there’s no therapist like one who understands the patient’s viewpoint, which she does.”
“And Vain and Artery Boy–” Both men in the room stare at bee-woman Hucka, more woman than ever now her antennae have permanently retracted into her skull. They know she’s on the wrong timeline, and could set them back precious minutes, seconds. They decide not to answer her and advance to the next subject. But they then speak at the same time.
“After you, Mr. Bloch,” TronAxis graciously allows.
“No, after you sir. You’re the doctor after all. The new one.”
“Alright, if you insist, thank you.”
(to be continued?)
Sunklands 